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The Enlargement Project aims at developing social dialogue in Central and Eastern European countries – Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic – and at integrating them in the European social dialogue. The workshops held, serve to exchanging experience and building networks between the countries.



The focus at this second workshop was on how the European social dialogue can actually provide added value for both parties at company level in the new member states. The presentations at the session were by representatives from social partners from ‘old’ member states – Italy and Sweden – and by the Commission.



The workshop was opened by Giancarlo Durante, Chairman of the Banking Committee for European Social Affairs of the EBF. He made a brief description of the aims and the course of the project and why the enlargement of the European social dialogue is important but challenging. He stressed the positive effect this is likely to have on the national dialogue in the new member states and on local dialogue in companies operating in these countries.



Giancarlo Ferrera from the Italian employers organisation ABI, Associazione Bancaria Italiana, in his presentation, described the development of social dialogue in the banking sector at European level and the positive results and agreements obtained. He pointed also to the value of the European social dialogue as a means to deal with company-level issues, as the setting up of European Work Councils.



Mario Ongaro from the Italian trade Union FISAC/CGIL also emphasised the role and importance of the European social dialogue in developing and ameliorating European Works Councils. He pointed to the example of the EWC-agreement in UniCredit, where important paragraphs of the CSR Joint Declaration is cited in the Foreword of the agreement, thus creating basis of some of the most innovative parts of the agreement, pointing to the possibility of going beyond the narrow concepts of information and consultation.



The presentation from the Swedish social partners was a joint presentation between Camilla Amnér from the Association of Swedish Baking Institutions (BOA) and Per Karlberg from the Swedish Financial Services Union. They described the collaboration between the two organisations on the topic Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities in the banking sector as an example of the added value derived from a constructive social dialogue between social partners at national level. However, they regretted the missing link between the national and European social dialogue on this topic and posed the question if this should be part of the agenda in the European social dialogue.



Commission representative, Dorota Dlouchy, presented the historical and theoretical background of ‘capacity building’ in the new European member states. Building capacities is necessary to develop social dialogue in these countries, which is generally very weak. Projects mainly focus on training, networking and joint activities undertaken by social partners and means for the activities are provided in large part by the European Social Fund.



Magnus Lundberg from NFU concluded the day by summing up the experiences and discussions held during the day.



The workshop was held on 26 June 2008 in Prague. A final conference will be held as part of the enlargement project on social dialogue in the bank sector in Brussels by the end of this year.



You find the presentations from the workshop below